For those who are not familiar with the series, Blade if the Immortal is an award winning manga by Hiroaki Samura about a ronin who caused the death of 100 swordsmen including his sister’s husband and is now cursed to immortality by “blood worms” that keep him alive no matter how serious the wound and can even reattach severed limbs. In order to find peace Manji now has to kill 1,000 evil men. One day he meets a young woman named Rin whose parents were killed by a doujo called the Itto-ryu (who believe that any technique is valid no matter its origins ow how devious or underhanded it is) and agrees to help her get revenge. The manga is published in North America by Dark Horse.

I would have preferred that Blade of the Immortal be adapted as an OVA instead because the manga’s main attractions are the beautiful artwork and extremely violent material and I doubt that Bee Train can pull it off technically and in a tv series format. The director and animators are the same as Noir and .Hack//Sign.. so there should be a lot of still shots and lazy animation. My expectations are pretty low for this. I just wish Madhouse or Production I.G. were doing this instead, Seirei no Moribito and Shigurui level animation would do this series justice.

edit: March 6, 2009

How disappointing, Beetrain fails yet again. I so wanted this anime to be worthy of the manga -__-

All of the summaries and pics came from AniDB, the ANN Encyclopedia, MyAnimeList.net, and Baka-Updates Manga and the first air dates came from The Fansub Wiki. I will update this entry with links to trailers soon. This upcoming season looks pretty good with no h-game adaptations and plenty of more mature looking shows and some sci-fi. Personally I’m looking forward to checking out Tower of Druaga, Toshokan Sensou (Fahrenheit 451 meets Read or Die?), Allison & Lillia (reminds me of Last Exile somehow) and Crystal Blaze.

The broadcast date and time is uncertain at the moment, but I’m just happy that more yuri-licious tales from the Lillian All-Girls Catholic High School is incoming \o/ However with the untimely demise of USA Geneon, I wonder if the first 3 seasons will ever see the light of day here in the US..

Fun fact from the ANN article: that the Rose Mansion from the anime is being recreated in Second Life.. maybe I should finally register an account despite all the horror stories and shenanigans I’ve heard of the place.

goo Ranking is a large Japanese polling site and in November 2007 over 1k people completed a questionnaire about what they thought an otaku looks like. Here is the top five results for both males and females, the source has the full list.

Q1: What characteristic in males makes you feel he looks like an otaku? (Sample size=1,101)

Anime print t-shirt

Anime print paper bag

Bum Bag/fanny pack

Wearing a bandanna around the head in a hachimaki style

Bag plastered with anime-related patches, stickers –

Q2: What characteristic in females makes you feel she looks like an otaku? (Sample size=1,101)

So the action star of many a bloody John Woo bullet opera is now going to play a lecherous old martial arts mentor in Twentieth Century Fox’s live action Dragon Ball movie.. I am speechless.. dammit Hollywood stop ruining my childhood idols! >_<

The latest one is by the president of GDH International, the parent company of Gonzo. The shitstorm started after an interview with activeanime.com where Arthor Smith compared watching fansubs of unlicensed anime to “smashing the window of a Mac Store and taking an iPhone the day before it is released.” Please read and make up your own mind. Omo’s post detailing all the major positions in the “fansub war” and the previous open letter by an anime industry insider make for some interesting reading reading.

At New York Anime Fest, anime director Kobun Shizuno (Giant Robo, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Elfen Lied) showed off a trailer to his newest show called Cross Climb during one of his panels. From what I can tell it is about a woman named Ruby who has no luck with men. In an effort to reinvent herself she joins a virtual reality mmorpg called Cross Climb where she can become a dragon-slaying knight or pilot a transforming race car/mech. Of course all this fun cannot be contained when dreams and reality mix and all the online monsters escaping into the real world..

Hopefully this will turn out alright but the trailer looks plain silly. The oh-so-serious Mr Trailer voice didn’t help -_- This looks like a GONZO would crank out.

It is good to see that Overflow has a good sense of humor. They are the software company that made the visual novel School Days that was later adapted into an anime that was embroiled in the Nice Boat! controversy. Now if they have a disemboweled Sekai hugpillow at their booth I’d have to order it no matter how expensive the shipping!